Conviction

Another 2 post day - but I couldn't resist sharing this quote from another blog that I read regularly. You all have been part of my journey through this pregnancy. I have gone from denial and questioning to acceptance. However, there are still many times that I think forward to all the sacrifice the will be required of me after this baby is born. With some trepidation I forsee sleepless nights, trying to be a parent to a toddler and an infant, the restrictions of breastfeeding, the feeling of being tied down to the house because of needing to work around a newborns schedule.

The following quote revealed my selfishness to me. God has given us this baby, it is His will for me that I serve Him by being the best mother that I can be to the children He has blessed me with. Only in serving Him and bringing glory to Him (even in the most mundane of tasks) will I truly find freedom.

Elizabeth Prentiss in "Stepping Heavenward" has just found out she is pregnant again. Others are viewing the pregnancy as a burden. This is her response:

“She says I shall now have one mouth the more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music, and drawing. Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worthy all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ’s name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother’s heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers!”(Stepping Heavenward, p.228-229)

The world says that children are a burden. The Bible tells us they are a gift from God (Psalm 127:3). The world tells us that our significance is found in making a name for ourselves. The Bible tells us that we are to make God’s name great, in whatever He has called us to do. I need to remember, in however mundane the task, that God has bestowed on me the high and holy honor of raising children to live for His glory. May we embrace our calling as Mrs. Prentiss did, with great joy and purpose, making a willing sacrifice of time, love and leisure for the sake of the precious children the Lord has entrusted to us.